Going Home
by Pyromaniiak
Summary: After all the things he's gone through, Marth finally returns to his homeland. Set after Shadow Dragon. One shot.


**This is a short scene on what I imagine Marth return to Altea would be like after Shadow ages and names may be a little off, since you can change them around. I just went with the ones on Wikipedia.**

**I do not own Fire Emblem.**

Prince Marth, for all his maturity and grand power and destiny, was still only seventeen. It was hard to remember when he planned out a lengthy battle, cut down those in front of him with ease, offered diplomacy to leaders who had been determined to kill him minutes before. He did not act his age, as he was expected to so much more than a seventeen year-old prince.

But on this morning, on the ship sailing for the land that belonged to him, he felt young. His hands were clamped in a death grip on the railing, eyes transfixed on the shadow on the horizon that slowly grew into the shape of the land he loved and had abandoned two long years before.

The sea breeze on his face and the spray misting over the ship's sides were achingly familiar as he stared at the land that growing closer with each passing beat of his pounding heart. It felt like yesterday that he had been watching that land disappear, bound towards a new land and an uncertain future.

Every day in Talys had been a blessing, and he was forever in debt to Caeda and her father for sheltering him for two years. But it wasn't home. The air tasted different, the soil felt foreign beneath his feet. Even the night sky seemed unfamiliar, though the constellations he had observed as a child were still painted on the navy canvas.

Every day of training, with Jagen and Cain and Abel, he had thought of the land and the people he had left behind. Every bruise, every bead of sweat, had been shed to the rhythm _For Frey, For Elice, For my parents, For Altea._

He had pushed himself past exhaustion, past embarrassment and shame at his failures, past his physical weakness because he knew, someday, he would go back and free his people.

It had seemed so far away, a distant goal that would never actually be realized.

There were nights when he couldn't sleep because of the guilt and anger gnawing at his heart. There were days when he wanted to cry because Cain and Abel had turned to the missing member of their trio, and found only an empty seat at their table, and it was because of _him_ that they fell into silent, morose memories.

He was a craven. A coward. A child playing war games. He was so _weak_, not strong enough to overcome the ghosts in his head and those on the battlefield. He had wanted revenge, divine justice to rain down on those that had dared take his family from him. But after years of restless wandering, he had found that the only thing that would soothe his wounded heart was the fair hills and fields of Altea.

"We're coming into the docks, my Lord."

His veins filled with ice. He wasn't ready. He couldn't do this.

But the ship was pulling into a hauntingly familiar harbor, and dockworkers on shore were tying off mooring lines, and a gangplank was being laid at his feet.

Marth couldn't breathe. His legs felt like lead and he was pretty sure his hands were visibly shaking as he slowly descended the wooden plank and stepped onto the weathered earth of his homeland.

All at once, the salty air seemed fresher, the breeze sweeter, the sun brighter, as if Altea was welcoming its lost prince home.

The last time he had been on this soil he had been young, fleeing, and fighting for his life. The memory was fresh in his mind and suddenly he was drowning in the past. The background noise of the League disembarking was suddenly the shouts of his entourage as they hustled him onto the ship, his pleas ignored as they left Frey, left Elice, left his people.

He had been so young then.

"Altea." The name was silk and a soft summers breeze, and was like a healing balm to his war-torn heart.

Those present, from the dockworkers to the League could only watch in awe and respect as Marth, descendent of Anri, wielder of Falchion, commander of the Archanean League and lost prince of Altea knelt, and with tears in his bright eyes brushed his lips against the ground of the land that held his heart.


End file.
